Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Another Ex-Boyfriend Gets Pinched For Allegedly Forging Deed To Remove Former Girlfriend's Name From Title To Jointly-Owned Home

In West Palm Beach, Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports:
  • Two Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office corrections deputies were arrested Wednesday [June 14] after they allegedly had the name of a fellow corrections employee removed from a property deed without her knowing, according to a sheriff’s office report. This isn’t the first time the two deputies have been arrested, either, records show.

    Willie Cone III, 35, and Saida Douglas, 36, each face one count of fraud. Both Douglas and Cone were released on $3,000 bond each Wednesday afternoon from the Palm Beach County Jail.

    A 40-year-old woman filed a police report that her ex-boyfriend, Cone, had removed her name without her consent from the deed to a Loxahatchee home they bought together worth about $140,000.

    She said the pair dated between 2011 and 2013 and while she had mentioned to him about removing her name from the deed after they split up, she never gave permission for him to take her off the document. She told investigators she had just happened to check to property appraiser’s website and saw the allegedly fake document.

    The woman who notarized the document told investigators that she met Cone, Douglas and the other corrections employee at the main jail near West Palm Beach because they all worked there. Cone not only works at the western facility in Belle Glade, but the other corrections employee also was out on family leave the day she allegedly signed the document.

    Additionally, investigators noted the “witness” on the quit-claim deed was Douglas’ mother. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the mother was out of the county when the document was signed. She resides in Haiti, according to the report.

    Though the notary is listed in the report and investigators note there is probable cause to charge her with fraud, jail and court records do not indicate she had been arrested as of Thursday.

    Cone was arrested twice before for domestic violence in Palm Beach County in 2011 and 2013. In both cases, it was the same woman who bought the home with him and each time charges were not filed. According to media reports in 2011, Douglas was arrested after she alleged fired a gun into a bedroom wall as she fought with her then-husband in Lauderhill. The outcome of the case is unknown, because the records do not appear in the online records of the Broward County clerk’s office.